[Sca-cooks] Hello?

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Fri Dec 8 19:25:37 PST 2006


On Dec 8, 2006, at 8:21 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Adamantius commented:
> <<< it's unseasonably cold here, and I'm making two
> pots of a reasonable facsimile of Die Echte clam chowder from
> ingredients in the fridge and cupboard >>>
>
> Note to the unwary. This is *Adamantius'* cupboard. Not a normal
> cupboard. The contents of your cupboard may vary. etc., etc. :-)

Quite possibly. In this case, the ingredients from my cupboard  
consisted of canned, Doxee chopped clams and bottled clam juice of  
the same brand. Commonly used for quick chowders and the occasional  
pasta sauce.

> I've heard of Manhattan clam chowder and New England Chowder. How
> does this one differ?

"Die Echte" is just a German expression roughly equivalent to The  
Real McCoy. What I made was a Manhattan-type chowder and a pseudo- 
traditional-revisionist (since no one ever follows the real  
traditional formula) New England chowder.

> Or is it a subset of Manhattan chowder due to
> having the tomatoes?

As I say, one was a fairly standard Manhattan chowder, which contains  
tomatoes, in keeping with its Long Island roots as imported from  
Block Island, which is in Rhode Island, which is in New England, long  
known as a hotbed of heretical, tomato-infected chowders. The idea  
that New England chowders should not contain tomatoes and should  
contain milk and/or cream appears to be a 20th-century thing;  
previously the two types were more or less identical, with butter  
added in Maine and a tomato product -- frequently ketchup -- added in  
most other places. Whether the primary seafood was cod, clams,  
tautog, or whatever, was a regional thing.

> <<< This process is _fairly_ modular; the pot which will get stewed,
> diced tomatoes instead of milk and cream (these are somewhat modern
> versions, but not totally heretical), will also get mirepoix and a
> bit of diced Bell pepper (red was the first my hand fell on in the
> vegetable bin, so red it is) instead of just onion. Have added flour
> to make a roux (in lieu of crushed ship's biscuit; matzoh cake meal
> _does_ work, though) out of the rendered salt pork fat in both pots,
> then clam liquor (no, Stefan, before you ask, this is neither
> distilled nor fermented, it's just what they call the juice from
> opened clams). >>>
>
> Yep, we've discussed that previously. However, if it was something
> distilled or fermented I might have a better chance of finding it
> down here in Ansteorra. Or is this the stuff they sell in little
> glass bottles that looks like dirty dish water?

In this case, yes, but the bottled stuff is commonly known as clam  
juice. Real clam liquor (which I used as a generic term) is really a  
byproduct of shucking raw clams or oysters. You can also steam them  
lightly to open them, and then you have a cooked broth. In practical  
usage for chowders they are more or less interchangeable.

> <<< Then milk and cream to one pot, and canned, diced
> stewed tomatoes in juice to the other. Taking five to type this, then
> will add potato to both pots. Shortly before serving,  clams are
> added, salt and copious pepper, then a pat of butter in the bowls
> destined for the White Stuff... >>>
>
> Ah, I had begun to wonder if any clams were actually going to get
> added at some point. This makes sense though since it would be easy
> to overcook the seafood if added too soon.

Many would argue that canned clams are already overcooked, so you  
really want to do no more than warm them up before serving...

Adamantius


"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04





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